Andrea Dworkin in agony

In her response to Dworkin's essay, Bennett first spends several paragraphs paying tribute to Dworkin's previous reputation for factual precision, noting in particular her Web site's carefully substantiated statements regarding several Dworkin rumors. But Bennett goes on to question why Dworkin did not seek medical attention for the pain and injuries she described: the unusual bleeding, the "big strange bruise" on one breast, the "huge deep gashes" on her leg. "The reluctance of a rape victim to be further violated by examination and questioning is understood," Bennett writes, "but if this is what prevented Dworkin from seeking help it does not seem consistent with her current decision to relive the ordeal, in vivid detail, for readers of the New Statesman." Bennett also wonders why Dworkin, an anti-rape activist who has devoted much time and energy to battling the crime, decided not to inform the police or hotel security when she realized what had happened to her: "Is this bartender, with his accomplice, to be allowed to continue drugging and raping female guests?" Bennett asks.

Once the first doubts had been publicly expressed, an accusatory pile-on ensued in the U.K. press and on the Web. The rape story was dissected -- and dissed -- by a parade of disdainful commentators. There were nit-picking questions of logistics and logic: Why didn't the rapists close the curtains; did they want to be seen committing the crime? Why would they have drawn her to the edge of the bed as she surmised; wouldn't it be inconvenient for a standing man to try to insert his penis into a woman lying at the level of his knees? How was it that both the bartender and his assistant could be absent from their duties in the hotel without incurring questions -- and what if they had alibis? And so on.

Others, like "Susan Marie" at MouthOrgan.com, were less concerned with the objective truth of the incident than with other parts of Dworkin's story. One of the strangest passages in Dworkin's essay is a descent into mad, despairing, politically incorrect questions about why the rapists might have selected her: "I go down the checklist: no short skirt; it was daylight; I didn't drink a lot even though it was alcohol and I rarely drink, but so what? It could have been Wild Turkey or coffee. I didn't drink with a man, I sat alone and read a book, I didn't go somewhere I shouldn't have been, wherever that might be when you are 52, I didn't flirt, I didn't want it to happen. I wasn't hungry for a good, hard fuck that would leave me pummelled with pain inside."

"Susan Marie" was disturbed not by the last statement's almost sensual preoccupation with the imagery of violent intercourse but by the "checklist" itself, a disquieting mental exercise for a feminist to resort to. To her, it suggested that -- contrary to everything a rape expert should know -- Dworkin somehow still believes that only young, attractive women, or those who take foolish risks, or those who secretly "want it to happen," are raped. "It feels," wrote "Susan Marie," "as though underneath all of everything she's said about rape, there's still the belief that women who are raped had it coming somehow. And that she's different because she didn't do anything to bring it on." At the very least, Dworkin seems to have wanted to absolve herself before her audience, to prove to us that she had done nothing to "deserve" it.

The criticisms of Dworkin's piece ranged from sorrowful head shakings to bizarre speculations about her sex life. Some even made smug and astonishing statements to the effect that if it was true that she had been raped, it was merely her sexual karma coming home to roost, the result of her jihads against pornography and intercourse. Sexologist Susie Bright, who has had her share of virulent intellectual conflicts with Dworkin's famous anti-pornography crusade (which resulted in a notorious body of Canadian censorship law), wrote on her Web site, "Plenty of my peers would say that they are utterly cold to any misfortune that might befall [Dworkin]. 'Just think of all the lives she's threatened, warped, and terrified,' they remind me. 'Canada is still reeling,' my partner interjects."

"Poubelle" on the Spies.com board wrote, "And I guess I feel worse for those who Dworkin has hurt than for her." "REM" at MouthOrgan.com, although subsequently denying harboring any thought of Dworkin "deserving" such a thing, said, "Rape is about violence, and Dworkin makes herself a lightning rod for men with violence on their mind." Dworkin should, therefore, just accept the universe's balancing of her accounts, these critics imply, and, above all, shut up about it. "Jane Duvall," also at MouthOrgan, wrote, "Cases like this do more to damage every credible case out there than anything else. It's horribly irresponsible, and a disservice to women everywhere." She echoes Bennett's observation that the piece doesn't do Dworkin or us any favors. In other words, she should never have published it.

Next Page: The "sins" of Andrea Dworkin

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